This disclosure relates generally to electrical connector assemblies, and more specifically to cable connector assemblies for cables having a plurality of conductor wires.
Military and commercial electronics often employ cabling or wiring harnesses for transmitting electrical or optical signals. Such cabling and wiring harnesses often have connections at a termination point that can be disconnected and reconnected through the use of electrical plugs such as connector assemblies. Many such connector assemblies have a male component and a female component that are joined together to complete one or more circuits. Typically the male connector includes one or more electrical or optical conductors, and the female connector includes one or more receptacles for receiving the conductors of the male connector portion.
Cables are known having a plurality of conductors, sometimes referred to as wires, so that many different optical or electrical signals can be conducted in the cable simultaneously. The cable conductors are typically terminated to a plug-type male connector on at least one end, and the plug-type connector is insertable into a female connector receptacle, sometimes referred to as a connector jack, that is in turn interfaced with an electronic device or signal transmission network. Attaching the plug-type connectors to such multi-cable cable conductors can be time consuming and difficult. For example, it has been found that plug-type connector can take approximately four hours to install to a cable having eight conductors. Especially when a number of such cables are utilized, such as in a complex signal transmission network of an aircraft having a number of interconnected operating systems, the time necessary to install all the cable connectors can result in significant time and labor costs.